Accounting Software for Churches

Accounting Software for Churches

Accounting Software for churches provides churches with a simple and easy solution to track their checkbook, income, expenses, payroll and designated funds. Easy-to-use screens allow the user to input checks, deposits, paychecks, credit card charges, budgets and to print comprehensive financial reports. These reports include Budget versus Actual Comparison reports for income and expenses as well as a Balance Sheet Roll-forward report for designated funds and the general fund.

Church Accounting Software can grow with your church. Track an unlimited number of transactions, funds, accounts, employees and payees at no additional charge.

Track all of your bank account balances

Track fund balances for your General Fund and all of your designated funds

Church Accounting Software provides simple, easy to use and affordable.

Church Accounting Software is easy to learn and use.

The following is an overview of the steps to get started.

Step 1: Set up your funds. Every church needs a general fund to track general offerings and contributions and the church’s general operating expenses. With FlockBase Church Accounting Software you can also set up an unlimited number of designated funds which will allow you to track contributions and expenses for monies that have been designated by the contributor for a specific purpose. For example, the church may establish a building fund to receive contributions designated for the construction of a new building at a future date. Other examples of designated funds are Missions Fund, Youth Group Fundraisers Fund, Benevolent Fund. The great thing about having a true fund accounting system is that you do not need multiple bank accounts to track the balances of designated funds. Instead, the accounting software allows you to easily track multiple funds with just one bank account.

Step 2: Set up your accounts. The type of accounts you will setup include bank accounts, income accounts and expense accounts. Because FlockBase Church Accounting Software is a true fund accounting package, the church can operate with as little as one bank account. Although you can operate with as little as one bank account, FlockBase does not limit the number of accounts you can have. You can establish as many accounts as you want. You will setup at least one income account for the general fund and then as many expense accounts as you want to categorize your general expenses (e.g. pastor salary, insurance, utilities, etc…). You will also setup at least one income and expense account for each designated fund. These are the accounts you will use for deposits and checks related to these designated funds. FlockBase Church Accounting software also allows you to track Other Asset and Other Liability accounts (e.g. Prepaid Insurance Asset, Payroll Tax Liability) if you choose to do so.

Step 3: Setup your budget. Although this step is optional, we believe you will find the Budget Comparison reports to be very useful. These reports will allow your financial management team to compare actual income and expenses with your budget. This can be a valuable tool in monitoring the financial condition of the church.

Step 4: Setup your employees. If you have employees who are going to need a W-2, you can set them up in FlockBase Accounting by entering their name, address, SSN, marital status and allowances. FlockBase Accounting Software can automatically calculate federal income tax withholding, Social Security & Medicare withholding and the net paycheck. It can even print the paycheck and a paystub for the employee. Note: FlockBase Accounting does not automatically calculate state and local income tax withholding. If you are required to withhold state and local income taxes from your employees’ paychecks, you will enter that withholding amount into the paycheck screen.

That’s it. Your Church Accounting Software setup is complete! As you can see, our approach is to keep it simple.

After your Church Accounting Software setup is complete, you are ready to enter checks and deposits.

Is FlockBase Church Accounting Software easy to use?

Yes, our software is very easy to use. FlockBase Church Accounting Software is a register based system. If you can enter checks and deposits into a register, you can use our software. When it is time to enter a check, just input the date, check number, payee, amount of the check and which expense account it belongs to (e.g. Utilities expense). That’s it. Entering a check cannot be simpler than that. Deposits are entered the same way. Enter the date, the amount of the deposit and the income account it belongs to (e.g. General Fund Contributions, Building Fund Contributions, etc…). Do you need to split a deposit among more than one fund? No problem, FlockBase Accounting allows you to split a check or deposit among as many income or expense accounts as you need. Do you want to reconcile your checkbook to your bank statement (which is always a very good idea), no problem. FlockBase Accounting has a screen that allows you to easily reconcile the checkbook to the bank statement by clicking off the checks and deposits that cleared the bank statement.

Is converting from a prior accounting system to FlockBase accounting easy?

It can be. Getting started on the right foot with FlockBase Accounting is going to hinge upon two factors:

Setting up the funds and accounts properly,

Having a balanced set of books before you start.

Setting up the funds and accounts is as easy as we described it above. And, we have a User Guide which provides detailed step-by-step instructions for setting up your funds and accounts.

Having a good set of books before you convert to any new accounting system is a must. In other words, there is not any new accounting software in the world which can straighten out a mess that was created by humans over a period of years. The old adage, “garbage in, garbage out” is still true today, and applies to most aspects of life. This certainly applies to your accounting system. Although our accounting software is very easy to use, if you input incorrect figures in the beginning, those incorrect figures will stay there until you correct them. If you feel that you have a mess on your hands and you think you need help unraveling the mess, we can offer you help there too. Our software was developed by a practicing CPA. His CPA firm can offer you professional accounting consulting services (for a fee of course) to help you decipher the mess you have and get started on the right foot. Or, you could use a local CPA to help you straighten out your existing records. If a CPA will just take a few moments to browse our User Guide, the CPA will quickly understand how our software works and should be able to help you transfer your beginning balances into our software.

Please contact us if you have any questions about how the software works.

Areas of Service: Accounting Software for Churches, Church Accounting Software, Church Software, Church Non-profit Accounting, Christian Software, Church Budget Software, Church Payroll Software, Small Church Software